Shades
by Ithilwen K-Bane
Summary: Epsilon's goodbyes were not the only things he left behind. There's something that Tucker and the others haven't realized about the fragments. Rated for one F-bomb; this is properly T for teen.


_Red vs Blue_ and its characters are the creation of the crew at Rooster Teeth. It is itself inspired by _Halo_ , owned by Bungie and Microsoft.

Spoilers through RvB13-20, "The End"

.

.

Wash made sure his boot made a noise against the gravel. Tucker didn't look up. The sky over the communication temple seemed very empty today. Two feet away, a full-size figure in regulation blue was curled up on his side, arms around a modified rifle, completely silent.

"How's he been?" asked Wash.

"How do you think?" answered Tucker.

Wash looked at Carolina and she nodded.

"Tucker, with what happened—"

"He wrote us letters," Tucker said quickly, still staring at the ground. Something had drained away his swagger. "Turk and Sky found the audio in the suit's storage unit. He said goodbye this time."

"How did it happen?" Carolina asked quietly.

Tucker shook his head inside Maine's helmet. "I don't think it was like the first time. It was..." Tucker shrugged.

"Alpha only _thought_ his friends were dying," Wash said quietly. The secondhand memories were like an echo now, a copy of a copy. "The scenarios were fake. But for Epsilon—"

"He did it quick," Tucker said shortly. "Anyway, after we got off the ship, Turk—sorry, Turquoise—he started pulling up these files, asking me what they were. They had our names on them." Tucker held out a drive. "I think yours might be an apology," he said.

"You listened to it?" asked Wash.

"They auto-play the first two seconds. 'S how we knew whose was whose." He breathed out, pulling out another drive. "It took Turk a while to find yours, Carolina," he said. His arm hesitated halfway toward her hand. "It wasn't under C."

Wash watched her frown behind her visor and took the drive from Tucker. She plugged it into her radio port.

 _"I guess this is it, Sis. I can't say I never—"_

Carolina snapped the message off like she was killing a hornet, snatching the drive back up into her fist.

Back in Project Freelancer, Wash and Carolina had shared a mission, right after she'd gotten her speed mods. She'd tackled him out of the way of an improvised needler bomb. He'd come up sheepish, saying, "At least neither of us got hit." He'd smiled until he saw the blood. But how could he have known? She'd never made a sound.

She did now.

"You didn't know he called you that," said Tucker.

It wasn't a question. Wash felt something cold hit his stomach. Tucker actually knew, and he'd known about Alpha's first deconstruction. And that meant...

"Tucker, was he was still in your head when it happened?" demanded Wash.

Tucker didn't move an inch.

Having an AI try to kill itself when it was in your head was one thing. What was it like to have one split apart?

"...yeah," Tucker said into the ground.

Carolina exhaled sharply, slipping the drive out of sight. "Epsilon's new fragments," she said. "Where are they now? Can they jump from person to person?"

Tucker's laugh almost didn't sound forced. "I guess you missed the memo."

Fifty feet away, one of the mantis droids rose up from a crouch and turned, scattering three Federal soldiers. It took one step, then staggered and slumped back down.

"Cobie, get outta here!" clipped a small voice. "FILSS told _me_ to clear the walkway."

"C'mon, Jean. I _just_ wanna see how it works."

"Botha you cease operating that mechanical monstrosity this nanosecond!" barked Sarge

An ice-blue holograph in half-resolved Fed-issue armor appeared in front of Sarge's face. "You can't tell us what to do," it chirped. A darker form, shimmying between a Mantis droid and a Mark V helmet but always holding the same wine-dark shade, hovered nearby.

A crayon-blue cloud flushed over Sarge's helmet like a wave. Thready characters began to flash on his visor. "{{status: bored}} [Cobalt] ∩ [Aegean]: d0ing [/?]"

"I thought I told you to say outta my armor. I order you to possess Grif's armor! Ever since he got that knife back, he's just so darn cheerful." His fists throbbed indignantly.

"I'll get him out for you, Colonel!" Cobalt disappeared from sight, and Sarge's head started to twitch like a sack full of angry kittens.

"What? Stop that, ya dirty blues!"

"Sarge!" interrupted Simmons. "Maybe you shouldn't call the fragments 'dirty blues.' It might be bad for their psychoelectronic development."

"Aw psychoelectranomic this!"

"Well I wasn't gonna get involved, but what the hell?" shrugged Aegean, jumping into Sarge.

"Why you little..." Sarge swung his shotgun around, pointing the barrel squarely at his helmet's radio port.

"NO!" shouted Simmons as he tackled him.

The light blue figure reappeared and doubled over, shaking with laughter. "I fucking love these guys."

"Well that was pointless," clipped Aegean.

"{{contradiction: funny}}"

"Nobody cares, Ruly!"

"{{comprehension: failed}} [Turquoise] ∩ [Sky]: location [/?]"

Carolina walked up behind them. She watched Cobalt reappear in front of another mecha, Aegean right behind. Cobalt's arms moved like they were having an argument. The third, half-resolved shape followed them, gesturing over its unformed shoulder to something behind the rock face.

"They're mobile," said Wash as they walked toward the edge, "like Omega."

"And they were able to run Maine's armor," finished Carolina. "They can do real damage."

Tucker looked from one to the other and back. "You Freelancers better not be thinking what I think you're thinking."

"Of course not," said Wash, "but we _will_ need to ...take this matter in hand," he said.

Tucker watched Simmons dust himself off. They headed back toward the rocks in time to see Turk shove a cerulean-blue blur off a discarded battle rifle. Another two AI stood nearby, one deep purple-black with white pinpricks like stars. Cobalt flickered into the rifle and the heat indicator started to go up.

"Cobie, you're going to overheat it."

"I _just wanna see how it works_. If it makes you feel any better, I'll just displace the energy ...there," the targeting realigned to a nearby puddle.

"{{process: internal system assessment}}"

"No, Ruly, do _not_ try to help!"

"Sarge, I'm just saying we should be more careful," said Simmons as Sarge stormed toward the others. "They're new AI."

"And the I stands for 'insubordination'!"

"{{status: helping}}"

The water burst into steam, splattering Sarge's armor with mud.

"Ooops." Cobalt and Cerulean materialized outside the gun.

"Ya dirty bluuuuuuuue..."

"Well technically, you're the one who's covered in—AAACK!" Cobalt ducked as Sarge took a swipe at him and disappeared back into the rifle with Cerulean right behind.

Sarge stomped up to Tucker. "This is all your fault, Blue."

"Me?!"

"You're the one got started with violating the laws of nature with your demonspawn. Ya gave your little ghost friend ideas!"

"Wait—huh?" said Tucker. "Are you nuts? These new fragments aren't kids!"

Wash's neck straightened. "No, he's right," he realized. "These new programs are technically Epsilon's offspring." He looked at the others. "Lots of species die as soon as they reproduce. Epsilon was a fragment in the last stage of his lifespan. If he really did reset the rampancy clock by splitting himself, if Cobalt and the others really are young, this could revolutionize our understanding of AI theory."

"Or the UNSC will delete them just to keep things simple," murmured Carolina.

The wind whipped across the puddle.

"So they never find out," Tucker said tightly. "There are no homegrown AI on Chorus. The end. We don't even tell Kimball. We'll just..." He looked back at Sky and Cerulean. "What _do_ we do?"

"Most of the AI in Project Freelancer needed some ...help adjusting," Wash started, looking carefully at Carolina. "Whatever else you can say about the Counselor, he was good at pairing AI up with agents who'd be good for them."

"When that was his actual goal," Carolina added.

"Yeah well we don't _have_ any psycho counselor to figure out who goes with who," Tucker pointed out.

"I will take the fuzzy one."

Tucker turned around as Caboose pushed himself to a sitting position and stood up. He plodded past them toward the AI and sat down heavily, stretching one hand toward the gun. "Sorry I'm being sad on your birthday," he said. "Your dad and I were best friends."

Sky flickered but didn't answer. Cobalt's head peeked out of the rifle. Cerulean reappeared an inch from Caboose's fingers.

"Well I guess..." Tucker looked at the blurred out holographs and back. "Which one did you mean? They're _all_ kind of fuzzy, Caboose."

The rifle's targeting system activated, giving Caboose a thread-thin scan up and down. Cerulean glitched in place and pulled inward, coalescing into a blocky blue shape with a dark visor.

"Yeah," said Caboose as Cerulean climbed into his hand, kicking his feet for balance as if he had weight. "I know."

.

.

.

This 'fic has undergone substantial revision since it was first posted at Darkfrog24 under the title "Shades."

Okay, people. LET'S GET MOVING. We have seven and a half months until the new canon comes out, and that's not as long as you'd think. Until then, it's a wide blue ocean for Epsilon's new fragments. Are they assholes like he is? Are they innocent babes in the techno-woods? Are they Delta and Theta and Sigma? We can fanon _whatever we want_ but there is a time limit. Remember all those great 'fics about Locus keeping Wash and the others prisoner that we had between seasons 11 and 12. Did they suddenly suck when "On Thin Ice" came out? No. Could they have been written after that? Also no.

This is a space story. Not even the sky's the limit.

drf24 at columbia dot edu


End file.
